They had the wit to boast thus of their brilliant prisoner.

None more splendid came bound to Rome, or graced captivity with a more
invincible liberty of the heart. And the captivity and the leap of the
heart of the waters have outlived their captors. They have remained in
Rome, and have remained alone. Over them the victory was longer than
empire, and their thousands of loud voices have never ceased to confess
the conquest of the cold floods, separated long ago, drawn one by one,
alive, to the head and front of the world.

Of such a transit is made no secret. It was the most manifest fact of
Rome. You could not look to the city from the mountains or to the
distance from the city without seeing the approach of those perpetual
waters--waters bound upon daily tasks and minute services. This, then,
was the style of a master, who does not lapse from "incidental
greatness," has no mean precision, out of sight, to prepare the finish of
his phrases, and does not think the means and the approaches are to be
plotted and concealed. Without anxiety, without haste, and without
misgiving are all great things to be done, and neither interruption in
the doing nor ruin after they are done finds anything in them to betray.
There was never any disgrace of means, and when the world sees the work
broken through there is no disgrace of discovery. The labour of
Michelangelo's chisel, little more than begun, a Roman structure long
exposed in disarray--upon these the light of day looks full, and the
Roman and the Florentine have their unrefuted praise.




RAIN